


Half-Power Apocalypse

by burglebezzlement



Category: The Orville (TV)
Genre: Alara Whump, End of the World, F/M, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Mission Fic, Original Proto-Xelayan Plant, Temporary Loss of Powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-20 15:45:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17025492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: Weakening Alara’s muscles was supposed to be a routine medical treatment. But the Orville doesn’t do routine — and when Ed and Alara have to rescue an anthropology team from a planet where the population thinks the world is ending, things between them start heating up.





	Half-Power Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fuschia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuschia/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Thanks are due to [The Orville wiki](http://orville.wikia.com/wiki/The_Orville_Wiki), for providing a great place to check canon details; JP from Egotastic FunTime, for a hot tip on Xelayan naming conventions; and Star Trek: TNG, for multiple episodes that made me wonder what the heck was going on in the backstory until I realized I'd stumbled across a potential plot point. Thanks for the proto-Vulcans, TNG!

Alara looks at Claire in dismay. “You can’t be serious.”

“A torn ligament is very serious,” Claire says. “Three weeks of muscle blockers, Alara, and that’s my final offer.”

“But….” Alara’s at a loss. “It’s barbaric.”

Claire raises one eyebrow. “I assure you, it’s the standard of care everywhere in the Union.”

“Not on Xelaya. And you regrew Gordon’s entire leg!”

“Gordon comes from Earth gravity. And believe me, that particular procedure was not my first choice.” Claire sighs. “On Xelaya, you wouldn’t be experiencing the strength-to-gravity differential you experience here on the Orville. I know the thought of going on muscular blockers is upsetting for you, but it’s the standard of care for a reason. We’ve performed a basic graft procedure on your ligament, but there are significant complications in healing at a gravity different from your own. Reducing your muscular strength so you can’t damage it while it heals is the safest, simplest option, medically speaking.”

“Why can’t I just use a cast?” Alara asks, thinking of the old Earth entertainment programs Ed sometimes watches on the bridge during long, dull shifts.

“Now that really would be barbaric.” Claire shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Alara. It’s either this or returning to Xelaya to heal.”

Alara thinks about it. Going home. Her parents, fussing over her for three weeks. Telling her how welcoming Xelaya is to someone of her limited intellectual capabilities.

It’s definitely worse.

“Fine,” she says, hopping down off the table. She picks up the crutches she’s been using. “But I hope we don’t need a security officer for the next three weeks while I’m out on medical leave.”

* * *

She tracks Ed down in his office, deep into his quarterly reports. He brightens up when he sees her at the door. 

“Alara! Come in.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” she says.

“Please. Interrupt me.” Ed shakes his head. “If I’d realized how much paperwork was involved with running a ship….”

Alara decides to get right to the point. “I need medical leave, Captain.”

“How long?”

“Claire says three weeks,” Alara explains. She’s been standing, but her muscles are getting tired from holding her upright on the crutches. The blockers in the medpack Claire implanted under her skin must be setting in. She sits down in the chair, grateful for the relief from gravity, and wonders if this is how all the other crew members feel all the time. Constantly fighting even the Orville’s minimal gravity. It's a horrifying thought.

“Because of the crutches?” Ed asks.

“I’ll be off the crutches tomorrow,” Alara admits. That’s Claire’s estimate of when the muscle blockers will have kicked in enough to prevent Alara’s super-strength from ripping the healing ligament again. 

“So what’s the problem?”

“I’ll be on muscular blockers,” Alara explains. “I’ll only be as strong as one of the human crew members. I won’t be able to carry out my duties as Security Chief.”

Ed looks confused. “Alara, do we regularly ask you to move heavy objects in the course of your routine duties?”

“You actually do,” Alara says, but Ed shakes his head.

“On other ships in the Union, human crew members do your job,” Ed reminds her. “We can ask Isaac and Bortus to cover any pickle jars we come across for the next few weeks.”

He must see that she’s upset, because his voice softens. “Alara, you’re more than your super-strength. Your quick thinking has saved my life more than once, and the lives of everyone aboard this ship. You’re a great Security Chief, Alara. You can do this job. And the Orville needs you.”

He gets up. “Take a day,” he says. “Get used to the muscular blockers. And then I want to see you back on the bridge.”

* * *

Alara wakes up the next morning with her blanket pushing down on her, heavy against her limbs.

It’s strange. She mis-judges her step, getting out of bed, and rocks back on her heels before catching herself. Everything about her morning routine feels wrong. The water in the shower, pushing down on her. The toothbrush, unexpectedly heavy in her hand.

It reminds her of her first days at Union Point.

It was the first time she’d really been off-planet. Her mother and father went to conferences off-world, of course, but they’d always seemed to regard those as a necessary evil. Vacations and sabbaticals were spent on Xelaya, visiting cultural and historical monuments, or going to the family retreat home in the mountains. 

Alara hadn’t run away — not exactly. But she had known her parents disapproved of Union Point since the first time she’d brought it up as a potential future career path.

It was a revelation, arriving on Earth. Even just the regular shuttle to the planet was new. Alara remembers being frozen in her seat, uncertain of how to move in what felt, to her, like microgravity. 

Every cadet at Union Point had to acclimate, but for the Xelayans, it was worse, and Alara, never having been outside of Xelaya’s gravity well, had a harder time than most. She’d destroyed two doors, her bunkmate’s desk chair, and a basketball hoop before mastering the feather-light touch needed to use her strength in Earth’s lighter gravity.

Now, on the Orville, it feels just like that earlier displacement, but in the opposite direction.

She finishes getting dressed, snags a protein bar from the matter synthesizer, and gets into the lift. She’s used to having to restrain her touch on the door controls, but now she finds herself having to push three times before she uses enough force for the pressure to register.

She didn’t plan on working, but she finds habit and routine pulling her back to where she’d normally be this time of day: morning drill, in the environmental simulator. As a Class A exploratory cruiser, the Orville carries a security team, most of whom have secondary specialties in other fields. They meet every morning, before the start of day watch, to train together.

This morning, the Orville security team is running readiness drills on the surface of a simulated planet. The simulator is set for twilight on Kadnak IV, and the planet’s three ringed moons give the only light. Her team is spreading out among the rocks while Bortus watches.

“Lieutenant.” Bortus nods to her. “Captain Mercer told me you might not come today.”

“I’ll sit out the drills,” Alara says. She expects to see something in his face — pity, maybe? Instead, he just nods again, and turns back to give the team instructions. 

She sits down on one of the rocks. Her legs aren’t tired, not exactly, but there’s a feeling of relief she’s not accustomed to.

It’s going to be a long three weeks.

* * *

Alara goes back to her regular duties the next day. They’re on another routine stellar mapping assignment, so all she has to cover is her routine duties. Supervising morning drill. Setting personnel schedules and reviewing requests from her team. She does background checks on three potential crew members joining the crew and does her standard security sweeps of the ship.

Gordon and LaMarr try to get her to watch some old Earth movie, about an elephant named Dumbo, but Alara’s not really interested in hanging out with people. She spends most of her time re-checking her security sweeps. She might not be able to do her job the way she normally does, but at least she feels like she’s doing something. 

A week in, they bring a diplomatic mission to Xxxfthxlthx!k. On the return trip, Alara’s standard biosecurity screen doesn’t catch anything, but she’s got a feeling in her gut. It might not be logical, but she’s learned to trust that feeling, so she runs another set of scans, and uncovers a cache of exotic liquors the diplomat’s attaché is using to smuggle back alien genetic sequences. 

Alara and Ed confiscate the material, checking it into evidence for the Union courts. Kelly’s keeping the attaché under guard — he’s claiming that the sequences are just routine research material that he obtained in the course of his boss’s mission, but the way he hid the material suggests he knew they were Union-restricted. Alara digs into Union records, and finds ties between the attaché and a biotech firm on Guntar III with a history of questionable business practices. 

“Great work,” Ed tells Alara, as they carry the crates of evidence down the hall to the restricted storage bay. “Most people wouldn’t have caught that. He’s probably been smuggling restricted genetic sequences for years.”

Alara flushes.

* * *

When a visiting scientist does something deeply inadvisable with a sample from Mycellia V and barricades himself in his quarters, Alara has to call Bortus and Isaac to remove the barricades. But when the crisis is over, it’s still Alara Ed looks to.

“Good job,” he says, just to her, before nodding to the team. “If the fungus possessing Doctor Proust had managed to make it into the air vents, the entire ship would have been at risk of going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”

“I didn’t do enough,” Alara says quietly, as they walk back to the bridge together.

Ed’s eyebrows go high, the way humans’ eyebrows do when they’re surprised. “Alara, you’re the one who managed to get the fungus’s attention while we disassembled the barricade. Releasing the fungal pheromones into the air supply for his quarters was a brilliant move. Dr. Proust owes you his life.”

Alara doesn’t say anything, but she feels the same pride she feels when Ed asks her to open a jar of pickles.

 _Oh K’Tar,_ she thinks, that evening, staring up at the ceiling of her quarters. _Is that what’s going on? Do I like Ed? Like… like-like Ed?_

She's thought about it before. Ed’s the only man aboard the Orville who respects her strength, instead of acting like it’s a flaw he’s willing to overlook. Even at Union Point — most of the men Alara has dated have expected her to hide her strength. To let them push her and let them win.

Ed’s never expected that. Never wanted that, as far as Alara can tell.

But maybe it goes deeper than that. Alara thinks about Ed praising her when she opens his pickle jars, when she comes up with a solution to a problem — the way his eyes crinkle, just a little, at the edges. How happy she feels, looking up at him, knowing she’s made him happy. 

There’s a sinking feeling in her heart. _How am I supposed to ignore this?_

The ceiling doesn’t have any answers.

* * *

She finds herself thinking about it on the bridge, which is probably the last place she should be thinking about it. They’re out at the edges of Union space. Gordon and Bortus are debating whether Latchkum would be more fun with a heated Latchkum (“it’s like the best of Latchkum and Hot Potato!”) and Ed’s staring out the viewscreen at the stars, the way he sometimes does. Like they’re interesting, instead of just another routine stellar mapping assignment. 

Alara’s keeping her eyes on her viewscreens. She’s not going to stare at Ed. She’s an adult, a Security Chief, and she’s not going to get sentimental over his boyish human face looking out at the stars. So Human, so fragile, so squishy, yet still throwing himself into space like every discovery he makes could change the universe.

It’s not adorable.

It’s _not_ , she reminds herself. She has to get a handle on this, has to figure out a way to keep working with Ed without blushing every time he compliments her on her work. Has to figure out a way to stop reading between the lines, looking for another meaning —

Bortus moves next to her. “We are receiving a distress call from Daltis, Captain.”

Ed’s attention shifts. “On screen.”

“There is no image,” Bortus says. 

Isaac turns to face the main crew. “Daltis is under interdict, Captain. There would be no image.”

Alara nods. She’s heard about Daltis before.

Technology-wise, Daltis is about where Xelaya was in u.i.c. 246.2, or where Earth was in the late 1900s. Population-wise, the people look remarkably like Xelayans, which led to furious debate on Xelaya when the world was first discovered. Are they a lost colony of Xelayans? Did a third, as-yet-unknown people settle both Daltis and Xelaya?

After years of Union interdict on research on the planet, the topic has mostly passed from Xelayan interest, although the “Daltis question” still shows up on the sort of poorly-researched entertainment programs her parents disapprove of. The programs are filled with blurry images of ancient Xelayans, even blurrier holos of the first landing party on Daltis, and wild speculation about lost colonies.

Alara hadn’t heard that the planet had been opened to anthropological research. It must have been recently — when the planet was discovered, it was going through a period of intense political and social upheaval, with a rapid loss of technology and science. The Union interdict was put in place not long after the planet’s discovery. 

“It is our research outpost,” Bortus says. “Putting through audio now.”

There’s a crackle of static, and then a disembodied female voice comes on. “This is the Daltis research outpost to any Union vessel. Our cover may have been compromised. Requesting immediate evacuation from this location.” There’s another burst of static, and then the voice fades in again. “…all gone mad. They think the world is going to end.” 

A heavy thump punctuates the end of the message, and then the static rises again before it starts repeating.

Ed turns to Gordon. “How far away are we?”

“Few hours,” Gordon says. “We’re the only ones out this way, Captain.”

Ed’s face is grim. “The only ones who’d be able to get there in time.”

Kelly looks up from her comscanner. “Apparently their technology took another leap forward. They’re going to have radar, Ed. Satellite tracking. It’s going to be risky, sending down a shuttle.”

“So we do the best we can,” Ed says, heavily. “Alara, you’re with me.”

“Captain.” Alara struggles to keep her face from showing how bad an idea she thinks this is. “I suggest you take another crew member.”

“Why?” Ed gets up. “You’re Xelayan. These people look like Xelayans.” He looks over at Isaac. “It’s not a high-grav planet, is it?”

“No,” Isaac says. “Gravity on Daltis is approximately 1.2 times that of Earth.”

“Then let’s get me some prosthetics,” Ed says, getting up. “Isaac, please put together a briefing packet. Get us everything we have on the Daltans. Kelly, you have the bridge.”

“Sir.”

Alara falls in behind Ed as they head towards the primary matter replicator. “You should take someone else,” she says. “Bortus, maybe.”

“You really think Bortus could pass as Daltan?”

“Isaac, then.”

“On a planet under technological quarantine?” Ed shakes his head. “Alara, I know going on an away mission without your strength scares you, but you’re still stronger than almost everyone on this crew. I need you with me.”

Alara’s imagined Ed saying that to her. She bites her lip.

“And we need Kelly here on the ship, running interference with the Union,” Ed says, as they round the corner to the matter synthesizers. “We need to get the researchers off the planet now.”

Alara nods. Anthropological researchers going to planets under technological quarantine know the potential risks — what might happen, if the Union has no choice but to withdraw support. It’s why it’s so difficult to get Union approval to drop an embedded research team on a planet at this technological level. There’s too high a risk of someone unexpectedly developing the tech to look for quantum communications. Of one of the researchers getting into an accident, and getting brought to a hospital with medical imaging or genetic scanning. 

The researchers on the planet might not be from the Orville, but they’re part of the Union. They need to bring them back alive.

“I’m keeping it just the two of us,” Ed says. “We get down, we hide the shuttle, and we find the researchers. Once we get to them, we should be able to evacuate everyone on one shuttle. We need to minimize contact with the people of Daltis as much as possible.”

It’s not how Alara would have designed the mission. But then, Alara wouldn’t be sending herself.

* * *

Alara’s not sure what to expect from Ed’s prosthetics. Ed with a nose like hers, with ears like hers — she expects to find it unnerving, but instead, it’s strangely endearing. She gets out her comscanner and records a holo.

“To show Kelly,” she says, when Ed notices what she’s doing. 

She turns back to the matter synthesizer. The computer has a limited amount of information on Daltan customs, and they’re just guessing with their quilted surcoats and wide trousers. 

“These could be decades out of date,” Alara says. “Centuries, even.” She hasn’t forgotten the Kelvic hat situation on Sargus IV.

“So we claim to be actors.” Ed pulls on a headband to hide his smooth forehead. “Just as long as they don’t think we’re aliens from another world.”

The headband is crooked. Alara can’t resist reaching up to straighten it, her hands lingering just a moment too long on Ed’s face before she remembers and pulls them away.

* * *

They cloak the shuttle as soon as they leave the Orville, hoping to avoid showing up on any Daltan radar systems. The anthropologists are based in a town not far from the main continent’s capital city, and there’s an area of wilderness a few klicks away where Ed and Alara land and hide the shuttle.

It’s early evening, the light fading, the air strongly scented with smoke and ash. Alara helps Ed pull some branches across the gap where the cloaked shuttle hides, and then they start walking.

It’s not long before they start coming across people in the street. The computer’s best guess at Daltan clothing isn’t as far off as Alara feared, although she notices that the Daltans favor muddy browns and reds. She hopes there’s no larger cultural significance to the blues and greens she and Ed are dressed in.

Ed takes out his comscanner as they get closer to the anthropologist’s original broadcast location. The signal died, not long after the Orville diverted course.

“No new messages,” he says, grimly.

They pass by a few more high-density commercial blocks. As they pass into another housing district, they have to cross the street to avoid a house on fire, burning in the night while people crowd around to watch.

Closer to the center of town, the crowd grows denser, the streets lit by flickering oil torches being passed from hand to hand. Alara smells the fug of people crowded together, the acrid scorch of smoke. A rumble of conversation, snatches of talk from the end of days. At first Alara tries to keep her body between Ed and the crowd, protecting him, but soon the people grow too dense around them, and she just tries to blend in and stay by his side. 

They work their way through the crowd, working their way towards a side street while the mob slowly works towards its unknown destination.

“I hope you’re ready,” a man says, leaning in towards Alara as she and Ed try to push through. His eyes gleam with torchlight. “The Maker is coming, little girl.”

Alara can sense the tension in Ed’s body. “The Maker,” he says, like he’s trying to agree. “Yeah, I hear he’s a cool guy. We’re looking forward to that.”

The man reaches towards Alara. “Come with me,” he says. “You can’t meet the Maker on your own.”

Ed puts a protective arm around her. “She’s already got someone, friend.”

The man looks at Ed, eyes narrowing, and then backs away. “My mistake.” He stares at Alara, eyes dead, and vanishes into the crowd.

Alara’s shaken. The man looked Xelayan, but nobody on Xelaya would behave like that.

“You okay?” Ed says, into her ear, and Alara makes herself nod.

“We’re not far now,” she says, trying to pitch her voice so only Ed can hear.

They see the quantum transmission antenna first, sticking out of the back garden of a residential house, disguised to look like one of the satellite dishes they’ve seen outside other houses. The blueish tint of the duralloy in the light from the streetlamps might not look strange to the Daltans, but it’s an immediate giveaway to Alara.

As they get closer, Alara can see the crack in the duralloy. It explains why the team wasn’t able to hear the Orville’s transmissions when they arrived in-system.

They lurk in the shadows, waiting for another group of people with torches to pass by, and then let themselves in the front gate and up the steps to the front door. The plantings are deliberate, precise. It reminds Alara of Xelaya, an incongruous contrast with the dull roar of the crowd and the smoke in the air.

Alara’s working out the best way to break into the house without her super-strength when the door swings open. 

She knows, immediately, that the woman before her is Xelayan, and not much older than Alara herself. It’s a subtle difference in her ears, her nose ridges — likely not something the Daltans would notice, but something Alara sees instantly. 

“You’re from the Union.” The woman’s shoulders relax, just a fraction. “Come on. You’d better get inside before anyone sees you.”

“Captain Ed Mercer.” Ed shuts the door behind them. “This is my Security Chief, Alara Kitan.”

“Kurla, Cultural Anthropologist. We’re very glad to see you two.”

Inside, the house doesn’t look so different from a Xelayan home. Alara wonders if that’s the cultural anthropologists’ influence, or if Daltan homes also contain the large paintings, the carefully-arranged flowers. The communal table and the reflection chairs.

At the communal table, three other anthropologists are frantically packing research notes and cultural artifacts into carry-bags. Two are Xelayans, like the woman leading the mission. The other is Human. Alara can tell by the way the edge of one of his prosthetic implants has started to pucker. 

It must be painful. They must have had even more horrifying things to deal with, for the team to ignore the failing implant like that. 

Alara looks towards the windows, instinctively. The curtains are drawn, but she shivers, thinking of the chaos, the madness, outside.

“It wasn’t always like this,” Anthropologist Kurla says, catching Alara’s look. “The Daltans are much like the Xelayans.”

Alara shakes her head. “This doesn’t look like Xelaya.”

“There’s good reason for that,” Anthropologist Kurla says. She’s about to explain when a loud thump shakes the frame of the house.

“They’re into the municipal arms depot,” the Human anthropologist says.

“We have to get out of here now,” Alara yells, as the noise outside the house builds. “Come on.”

The team grabs their bags, and Anthropologist Kurla leads them towards the back door. They have to hop a fence to go out a street over. Alara can barely swing herself over the fence, and she catches one of the Xelayan researchers looking at her strangely.

She can understand why. Only 1.2 Earth gravities. She’d be wondering too.

They talk quietly, trying to look like looters, like refugees, as they work their way towards the shuttle. The researchers know how to avoid the worst of the mob, but they still come across a small group standing around a bonfire, eyeing the researchers’ bags hungrily as they pass.

They approach the shuttle from the other side of the woods.

“I hope your ship has a good doctor,” Anthropologist Kurla says, as they stumble across a small waterbody and climb the bank on the other side, their feet wet and muddy.

“The implant?” Alara asks. “Claire’s the best. Don’t worry. She’ll get him fixed right up.”

The woods are dark, and Alara’s sense of direction is uncertain. Ed has to take out his comscanner and briefly let the shuttle uncloak before they see it, under its screening branches.

He cloaks the shuttle again and remotely commands the door to open for the researchers. Alara stays back, watching the edge of the clearing while the researchers dump their carry-bags inside and start warming up the shuttle for departure.

They’re by the side of the shuttle, waiting for the warm-up sequence to complete, when Alara hears a noise from the bushes.

“Ed?” She keeps her voice low. “Did you —”

“I did,” he says, grimly. 

Union policy is not to take off in a shuttle where members of lesser-developed alien cultures can witness the event. There are good reasons for the policy. Alara remembers her classes at Union Point, all the tales of aliens and ships and how they warped various cultures in their natural development.

Ed leaves the shuttle, moving towards the noise from the edge of the clearing. Alara stays close, trying to protect him. 

With the light from the open shuttle door, she doesn’t see the Daltan until he’s right on top of her, fists raised, a dark blur against the dark woods.

The Daltan is strong, his first hit knocking her back, and Alara thinks this must be what other species feel like, fighting her. She raises her arms to block the next blow, but barely manages to stay standing. 

Head ringing, she looks around.

“Ed! Get back to the shuttle!” 

Ed’s got his PM-44 raised, but Alara knows she’s too close to the Daltan for him to take the risk of shooting, even on stun. “Ed,” she yells. She ducks, rolling to avoid another blow. She’s not used to being on the defensive, her reflexes blunted and weakened by years of being able to end fights in one blow. “Ed, you’ve got to get out of here!”

“Not without you.” Ed keeps the PM-44 trained on them. “Shuttle, take off. That’s an order.”

Behind Ed, the shuttle’s door shuts, and the light levels suddenly drop. Alara takes advantage of the distraction to duck behind the Daltan, kicking him in the ankle and briefly distracting him. 

She sees the shuttle take off, a black-cloaked void against the orange light in the sky from the fighting in the Daltan capitol.

The Daltan hits Alara again, harder this time, and she sees stars. Then she sees Ed, sprinting towards them, PM-44 in hand. Then she sees nothing at all.

* * *

Alara’s heard pounds. It feels like her skull is full of rocks, grinding against one another. 

She opens her eyes, just a bit, and then rapidly shuts them when the light triggers a wave of nausea.

“Alara!”

Ed’s voice brings another spike of pain, but somehow Alara doesn’t care. Whatever’s happened, Ed’s alive.

She opens her eyes again, a little wider this time. Her entire body aches, like she’s just been through drill on Xelaya, sparring with other Xelayans. 

“What happened?” she mumbles.

“Stay down,” Ed says. He kneels down beside her, his hand on her shoulder, gently keeping her from sitting up. “You took one hell of a blow.”

“I’m okay.” She’s not, but she doesn’t want Ed to know that. “What happened?”

“The Daltan had a friend,” Ed says. “A friend with an archaic projectile weapon. Apparently they were out looting. We looked interesting enough to loot, so they stashed us down here.”

Alara looks around, moving her head carefully. The space is dimly lit, with irregular stone walls and strange, hulking objects in the corners. “A torture chamber?” Has Daltis really fallen that quickly back into chaos?

“I think it’s just a basement,” Ed says, sitting back. When Alara looks at him, uncomprehending, he shrugs. “Xelaya must not have them because of the high gravity. They used to be a thing on Earth. It’s a space under a house — my cousin Jeremy has one.” He scrunches his nose. “Jeremy. He’s horrible. So proud of his recreation of an authentic late 20th-century Earth house. He uses the basement for storing garden hoses, and everyone who visits him has to go admire them. Do you know they used to have to water plants manually?”

Alara sits up carefully, trying to ignore the way her head swims. She’s on some sort of rough cot, made of wood and plastic. 

Ed hits his earpiece. “Mercer to Orville.”

“Orville here,” Alara hears, over the earpiece in her own ear.

“Alara woke up.”

“Well thank goodness for that.” It’s Claire’s voice. “Alara, can you hear me?”

“I — yes.”

“How’s that head?”

Claire asks Alara a series of questions, and then has Ed run through a bunch of tests, reporting back on what he sees.

“It sounds like you’ve got a concussion,” Claire says, finally. “I’d like to get you into the medical bay for observation, but given the situation…. Ed, here’s what to look for.” She runs through a list of symptoms. 

“Did we get the anthropologists out?” Alara asks, just to Ed.

“Yeah.” Ed half-smiles. “They made it out.”

“The Union called,” Kelly says. “Our orders are not to land on the surface.”

Ed groans. “They can’t just leave us here,” he says, and Alara realizes that he must have been talking to the Orville the entire time she’s been out.

“Don’t worry,” Kelly says. “We’ve got a plan. Can you guys get out of town, to some sort of open area without any Daltans around?”

“We can try,” Ed says. “We don’t know where we’re being held. Scan the planet for human life and figure out where we are, and then ask the anthropologists where we should head when we get out of this place. I don’t want to spend any more time on the surface than we have to.”

Alara nods, and then stops when the motion makes her head swim.

“Mercer out.” 

He takes his hand away from his ear. “Alara, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Alara says. With a feeling of horror, she realizes that there are tears welling up in her eyes. “Really, Captain, I’m fine.”

“When we get trapped on an alien world together, it’s Ed.” He pauses, and Alara realizes it was meant as a joke. He leans in. “Alara?”

That’s the final straw. She can’t hold her tears back any longer.

“I got you into this,” she says. “If I’d had my regular strength —”

“If you’d had your regular strength, you’d have taken that Daltan down, and then his friend would have shot you from the bushes.”

“Maybe. But at least I’d be able to get us out of this — this _basement._ ” 

She thinks about trying to remove the implanted medpack, but she knows it’s too risky. They have no tools. Trying to operate with pieces of the broken cot could puncture the pack, releasing the full multi-week med dose and leaving Alara in much worse condition than she is now.

Ed shakes his head. “I’d be just as trapped down here with John, or Kelly, or Gordon. None of them would be useless, and you aren’t, either. You’re the one who kept that Daltan who attacked us busy long enough for the anthropologists to escape.”

“I guess that’s true.” Alara looks away from Ed, checking out the basement for points of weakness. There’s a wooden staircase in the corner, leading up to a door. On the other side, a low staircase ends in a slanted metal ceiling. 

“Both doors are barred,” Ed says. “I tried them while I was waiting for you to wake up.”

Dim light filters in from high windows set in the wall, but Alara can see they’re covered with metal bars. The floor is dirt, but without any digging implements, it’d take weeks to tunnel out. They don’t have that kind of time. 

“I could get us out of here,” she says. “If I had my strength.” She could break down the doors. She could pull stones out of the foundation with her bare hands.

Ed sits down next to her. The basement is chilly, and she can feel the heat from his body. It’s distracting.

“I bet you can still get us out of here,” he says. “Your brain is your most powerful muscle.”

He says it earnestly, looking at her, and Alara gives in and smiles, just a little. 

“That’s what you’re going with?”

“It’s true,” Ed says, looking briefly annoyed, but then he laughs. His ear prosthetic is coming unglued — the temporary prosthetics are never intended to hold for long — and he looks so endearing, laughing with his ear flapping, that Alara laughs herself.

Ed knocks his shoulder into hers. “There. It’s not that bad.”

“So what’s our plan?” Alara asks. “Trick one of the Daltans into thinking we need medical attention, and then attack them?”

“I doubt it’d work,” Ed says. “I’ve been listening. I think they’re gone.”

Alara gets up and starts pacing the basement, looking for a weak spot. For rusted bars. For a tool, forgotten in the dirt. She tries both doors — Ed wasn’t wrong; they must be barred from the outside. She checks the hinges, the gap at the base, looking for a way to open them, but without her strength, without a tool of some sort, they’ve got no options. 

The hulking shapes in the corner end up being the mechanical systems of the house, which provide heated air, hot water, and communications relays to the occupants. 

They can’t call in any sort of tactical support from the Orville — not on a planet with a lesser-developed alien culture. The contact rules are strict, even in a situation like this one. They have their comscanners, which the aliens seem to have ignored, but their PM-44s are missing. Alara briefly gives thanks that standard protocols for landing on worlds like Daltis require activating the PM-44’s unauthorized personnel lock and self-destruct setting. 

“Any weak points I overlooked?” Ed asks.

Alara looks up. The ceiling is built of long, wooden beams, with tiny wood cross-braces holding up rough-cut boards.

“None you overlooked,” she says, and starts to smile. “But I might have one you underlooked.”

* * *

Figuring out what the mechanicals do is the first step. They use their comscanners to send holos to LaMarr, who identifies a water heater and something called a boiler. But it’s Alara who figures out a way for them to block what LaMarr calls the pressure-relief valve on the hot water heater.

“Stop being a baby,” Alara says, pulling Ed’s prosthetic ear off in one swift motion. 

“I never liked that whole Bandaid-ripping theory,” Ed says, but he helps her jam the rubbery prosthetic into the valve designed to allow the system to vent, jamming the stopcock shut.

“Do we need to move the heater?” Alara asks LaMarr.

“Don’t think you can, if you want it to stay connected to the power,” LaMarr says. “Looks like the failure point’s going to be the base. Are you sure it’s turned on?”

The heater, already warm, seems to be getting warmer. “I think so,” Alara says. 

“Then all you can do now is wait,” LaMarr says.

They can’t be sure when the heater will blow, so they take cover behind the wooden stairs, where the boulders in the house’s foundation walls stick out a little further, giving them some protection. 

“Stay behind me,” Alara says. Her muscles might be weak, but she still has her super-tough Xelayan skin. If the water heater goes off like a bomb instead of tearing a hole in the house the way they’re hoping it will, her skin can take more damage than Ed’s can.

Ed lets her back him into the corner. Alara turns, her back to the basement, and finds her face in Ed’s chest.

“This is cozy,” he says, a little breathless.

Alara looks up. She’s never been this close to Ed before. She tries to ignore the way her toes tingle. This isn’t about her stupid crush. This is about survival.

The toe tingles ignore her.

She clears her throat. “How long do you think it’ll take? For the heater to blow?” If it does. She hopes this plan works, because she doesn’t have another one.

“No way to know.”

She finds herself breathing when Ed does, hyper-aware of the rise and fall of his chest. She should make him crouch down, take cover. She feels like an exposed nerve, waiting for the explosion.

Ed looks down at her. “I should check your eyes again,” he says, brushing a finger under her chin.

Alara shivers. 

He looks in her eyes, checking each pupil. His fingers are gentle when he touches her head, but Alara breathes in sharply when he catches the sore spot on her scalp. 

“It hurts?”

She nods. His hands are on her face, and she can’t think.

“What would you do?” he asks, his voice quiet.

“What do you mean?”

“The Daltans,” he says, nodding towards the windows on the far side of the basement. “They think the world is ending.”

He takes his hands away from her face, and Alara wants to catch them, pull them back to her. 

“If you thought the world was ending, what would you do?” he asks.

Alara’s hyper-aware of the sounds of the basement around them, of the fading light from the windows. There’s a musty scent, and a faint pinging sound that’s been growing from the corner where the water heater lurks.

She knows what she wants to say. Knows what she wants to do — pull Ed down to her, kiss him like there’s no tomorrow. 

Like the world’s ending.

And then there’s a loud crash, and the world comes apart. Alara throws herself across Ed as steam boils around them, the thump of the water heater ripping through the ceiling of their prison and out into the world.

They stay still for a moment, afterwards. Alara’s not sure if her ear drums have torn, but then she hears a drip. Water coming down through the hole they’ve blown in the ceiling.

“I think we’re free,” Ed says. And the moment is broken.

* * *

They have to climb up through the hole in the ceiling. Alara gets on Ed’s shoulders, keeping her head barely above the floor level. Anyone guarding the house should have come to check on them when the basement exploded, but she checks anyway.

There’s nobody there, so she lets Ed boost her up and into the first floor. She finds wooden crates to throw down to him so he has something to climb on, and then helps him up through the floor. 

Upstairs, the doors are all unlocked. Their PM-44s are missing, along with their captors. They rummage through a clothes press and find a long scarf to wrap around Ed’s head to hide his uneven ears before leaving. 

It’s dusk outside. They pass the remains of their water heater in the street, a few Daltans clustered around it, arguing and waving their torches. Ed and Alara keep their faces turned away as they walk past. 

They get a few streets away before Ed tries to contact the Orville.

“Mercer here. We’re out,” he says. He’s got his hand on his earpiece, but he’s looking at Alara. 

“I’ve got Anthropologist Kurla here with me.” It’s Kelly’s voice. “We’re tracking you. She says you’re in a residential area.”

“Head towards the lights,” Kurla says.

“Towards?” Alara gives Ed a dubious look. “That’s going to take us closer to the fighting.”

“You’ll hit a greenbelt a few streets in,” Kurla says. “Once you’re there, you can start working around the city, towards the market garden district.”

Ed acknowledges, and they start heading towards the light on the horizon.

Past a few more housing blocks, they find the greenbelt, and a well-lit pathway through the woods.

“No Daltans.” Ed says what Alara was thinking. “Almost like they’re avoiding this place. Makes me wonder what Anthropologist Kurla isn’t telling us.”

Alara nods. She’d feel better if they had their PM-44s. If she had her strength. If —

 _Deal with the situation in front of you,_ she reminds herself. _Not the situation as you wish it was._ Her favorite instructor at Union Point had been fond of saying that to her students when they complained that a simulation was unfair.

Her head still hurts, and she wonders if she should have looked for painkillers in the house before leaving. The Daltans look so much like Xelayans — maybe their medicine would have worked. 

Claire probably wouldn’t approve.

“Can you run?” she asks Ed. She’s got an itchy feeling between her shoulderblades, like they need to get off-planet as fast as they can. Like something’s coming. 

He nods, and they start jogging along the path. Alara could run faster, but she’s got a feeling that Ed couldn’t. Not and leave any reserve left in his oxygen stores if they hit another ambush.

“Out for a run at the end of the world,” Ed says.

Alara nods and then coughs. The smoke smells different from yesterday’s smoke. There’s a sulphur undertone she doesn’t remember. 

Kelly’s voice cuts in. “You’ve got company ahead,” she says.

Alara grabs Ed’s hand and pulls him off the side of the path. They hide in the bushes as a Daltan looting party, loaded down with heavy sacks, approaches.

“So that’s why they have us on this path,” Ed mutters. The Daltans might be avoiding this area for a reason, but the low density of other lifeforms means the Orville can use their scanners to warn Alara and Ed of approaching threats. 

They wait for the looters to pass before going back to the path. Ed’s setting the pace now, a little faster, and Alara follows.

She doesn’t let go of his hand.

* * *

It feels like hours before they stumble out at the end of the path in the market farming district. The primary moon has risen, and Alara can see the fields, a crazy-quilt patchwork of neat rows of crops up against areas that look like they’ve been trampled by crowds.

They stay at the edge of the forest, in the deep blue shadows cast by the moonlight. Ed’s panting, and Alara can feel the burn of the long run in her lungs. 

“We’re here,” Ed says, hand to his ear.

“Stay where you are.” Kelly’s voice. “We’ve got Isaac and LaMarr coming down to get you.”

Alara’s headache is getting worse, pounding with her pulse, dropping back and building again. She steadies herself against a tree.

Ed’s there, beside her. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.” Alara lets the tree take her weight, and the pain in her head recedes a little.

She sees the cloak of the shuttle, black against the deep blue of the sky. It’s hard to judge, but it looks to be at least fifty feet above the fields. How —

Isaac’s voice, booming in her ear. “Step into the field.”

“Isaac.” Ed raises one hand to his ear, and puts his arm around Alara to steady her as they step forward. “Are we ever glad to see you.”

The shuttle door opens. A bright blue beam descends from the craft and touches from the surface, ripping up soil. Then the beam shifts, and suddenly she and Ed are pulled up from the ground, holding on to one another, nothing else to steady them, at the center of a vortex of dirt and vegetation. 

Alara holds on to Ed, her face against his chest, and wonders what a Daltan would see. _This is probably how alien abduction stories get started, _she thinks.__

There’s a moment of weightlessness as they fall into the open door of the shuttle. Inside, the shuttle’s floor is covered in dirt and something that seems to be the Daltan version of cabbage.

“How did you do that?” Ed asks, from the floor. He sounds like the wind’s been knocked out of him.

LaMarr looks back at them from the shuttle’s controls. “Isaac came up with a way to tune the tractor beam to make it safe to use on living organisms.”

“My original modifications would have achieved greater precision,” Isaac says. “Chief Engineer LaMarr’s insistence on leaving a buffer zone seems to have resulted in bringing unnecessary vegetation on board.”

“Bring the cabbages,” Ed says. “As long as you bring us too.”

Alara starts nodding, but stops. Her head suddenly hurts, so much more, like it’s only been holding together to get her to the shuttle.

She goes to sit down, and misses the chair.

* * *

The shuttle docking with the Orville. 

Alara, held close in Ed’s arms as he carries her. The ceiling of the corridor makes her dizzy, and she closes her eyes again.

* * *

Claire looking down, expression concerned. She’s saying something, something important, but Alara can’t make herself follow. 

She lets her eyes close. Claire is here. Ed is safe.

* * *

Alara’s not aware of the transition between nothing and something, between asleep and awake. It’s like she’s been awake for some time — she just can’t remember.

“—even a Moclan couldn’t have survived that,” Claire says, like she’s talking to someone else, and Alara stirs.

“I think she’s awake.”

Ed’s voice, from right next to her. Alara opens her eyes and smiles up at him.

“You gave us a scare,” he says. He moves his hand like he wants to touch her cheek, and then pulls it back. 

Claire pushes him out of the way and starts running her medscanner over Alara. “The next time I ask if your head hurts, I expect you to tell me the truth.”

“I did,” Alara says. “I said it wasn’t that bad.”

Her mouth is dry. She tries to swallow and then gives up. “Can I have some water?”

Nurse Park hands her a glass of water, and she sips gratefully. 

“How long was I out?” she asks, once she’s sure the water is staying down. 

“Two days,” Ed says. She looks at him. He’s got a clean uniform on, but he’s got stubble, like he hasn’t been running his depilatory ray in the mornings.

“That long?” Alara asks.

“You had a subdural hematoma,” Claire says. “If you’d been brought directly to Sick Bay after your injury, I could have healed you right up. As it was, you arranged to be at ground zero of an improvised rocket launch, ran eight kilometers, and then got exposed to an experimental gravity ray. We needed time to work.”

Alara winces. “I promise all of that was unavoidable.”

“She’s going to be fine,” Claire says to Ed. She turns to Alara. “Alara, how do you feel?”

“Tired,” Alara says. “But my head doesn’t hurt as much. Maybe a little.” She’s queasy, too, but the water’s staying down. 

“Good.” Claire nods. “That means the treatment is working. You need to sleep a little more, and we’ll have you ready to kick ass again.”

“We’ll be right here,” Ed promises Alara, as Claire raises a hypospray to her shoulder. She smiles as she closes her eyes again and lets herself drift off to sleep.

* * *

Two days later, Alara’s sitting up in bed, impatient to get out of Sick Bay. Claire’s insisting on running a few more tests. She’s also skeptical about removing Alara’s implanted medpack, to reverse the effects of the muscle weakeners. 

“My ligament is fully healed,” Alara says.

“I’d feel better if you weren’t trying to adapt to the changes in muscle strength while recovering from a head injury,” Claire says, from behind Alara. She’s doing microsurgery on Alara’s shoulder, preparing to remove the medpack.

“Maybe it’ll help,” Alara says. “Like a reset. Getting back to normal.”

“Normal?” 

Alara looks up to the door to Sick Bay, and sees Ed.

Claire gives her a whack on the shoulder. “Keep still,” she says. “This is delicate work even without patients moving around on me.”

“Sorry,” Alara says. She looks at Ed. “Claire’s removing my medpack. I should be back to normal by tomorrow.”

“You’re great no matter how normal you are,” Ed says, coming closer, his eyes warm. 

Alara wants to shrug, to look down, to protest, but Claire’s working on her shoulder and she also doesn’t want to get whacked again. “Thanks,” she says, instead. 

Maybe things on Daltis didn’t go the way they could have, but they managed to get out. And Ed’s proud of her. She can tell.

Claire slaps a dressing on Alara’s shoulder. “Good as new.” She pauses. “But be careful for the next few days, as your strength returns. We can’t afford a hull breach.”

“I promise,” Alara says, hugging Claire carefully. 

“If you’re feeling better, I have some people who’d like to thank you,” Ed says.

“Who wants to thank me?” she asks Ed, as they leave Sick Bay.

“The anthropology team,” Ed says. They wave goodbye to Claire and head towards the mess hall. “We’re on our way to Epsilon Science Station to drop them off.”

The team is sitting around one of the longer tables, eating karbal flakes and fruit. Alara’s been detached from the regular rhythms of the ship while she’s been in Sick Bay, but it must be breakfast now.

“Lieutenant Kitan!” Anthropologist Kurla gets up and bows low, Xelayan-style. “We thank you for your sacrifice in the service of knowledge.”

Alara blushes. “Just doing my job,” she says.

“Please,” Kurla says. “Join us for breakfast.”

Alara looks at Ed, who smiles. “You’ve got the day off,” he says. “Adjusting to that medpack removal.”

She orders her breakfast from the matter synthesizer while Ed heads off for the start of the bridge day shift. The four anthropologists seem different here. They’re dressed in normal clothes, the three Xelayans in quilted surcoats and the Human wearing a onesuit. The Human’s ears and nose have been surgically repaired.

“I hope you’re well,” Alara says, sitting down with her own breakfast. She still eats karbal flakes in the morning, but she’s also started drinking coffee. She takes a piece of melon from the communal fruit tray the anthropologists have ordered, and Kurla smiles at her.

“You didn’t just save us,” Kurla says. “You may have saved many lives on Daltis, as well.”

“How?” Alara asks.

“We weren’t sure while we were on the surface.” Kurla shrugs. “You know how the Union is about bringing advanced equipment while working within a civilization. But once we got here, your science labs kindly let us use their genetic sequencers.”

She leans forward. “We’ve solved the Daltis Question,” she says. “The people of Daltis are related to us. They are kin.”

“What?” Alara’s eyes go wide. “How? I thought there were too many records of early Xelayan space exploration for there to be a Lost Colony!”

“It’s not a Lost Colony,” Kurla says. “They are not descended from us. We are both descended from some third, common ancestor. And there are hints, in the genetic markers, that the separation may not have been natural. That someone — some other group — may have brought their ancestors to Daltis, and brought our ancestors to Xelaya, while altering our genetic sequence to see how we would each develop. It may explain why Xelaya has been so remarkably stable, why so few Xelayans ever leave — and why the people of Daltis are taken over by mad panics every fifty orbital cycles.”

Alara takes a bite of her karbal flakes and considers this.

Her father is going to be _shocked_. Even more than her mother was when the Orville discovered the flat dimension.

“What will you do with this knowledge?” Alara asks.

“Tell the Union,” Kurla says. “Whatever was done to the people of Daltis, I do not believe it was done by their choice. The Union may allow us some way to try to make this right.”

“And tell the news shows back on Xelaya,” one of the other Xelayans says. “They’re going to be making holos about this one for years.

Kurla smiles. “And that.”

* * *

The Orville drops the anthropologists off at Epsilon Science Station and heads back into the usual. There’s a diplomatic mission to be retrieved from Litor VI, followed by another star-mapping assignment. They almost get sucked through a spatial anomaly while running a scientific mission at the edge of Krill space. They do get sucked through a different spatial anomaly on another mission to bring vaccines to Xpitar VIII, but that one’s hardly worth charting. And Gordon tries to convince Ed to adopt a small, furry creature from Altan VI as a pet for the bridge, only to be stopped just in time by Kelly when she discovers that the creatures reproduce uncontrollably. 

Alara’s strength returns, more slowly than it left. She runs morning drills and routine security sweeps and joins the bridge crew for drinks after tough assignments. 

This is the life she had before Daltis. She wonders why it feels off, like an old uniform that doesn’t quite fit.

She tries not to think about Ed, but he’s always there. If he’s not sitting in the command chair on the bridge, he’s sneaking into her thoughts. Into her dreams. 

She wakes up one night, sweaty, thinking of him. _What would you do if you thought the world was ending?_

Down on Daltis, she knew the answer. And maybe she still does.

* * *

Alara waits a few days more. Maybe it’s cowardice. Maybe it’s strategy. The Orville will be at Maintenance Base Gamma for upgrades to their central computer core, and if Alara’s wrong about this, she doesn’t want to have to stand shift with Ed for a few days while she comes to terms with it. 

She thinks about the look in his eyes, down on Daltis. The way his hand felt against her cheek.

She doesn’t think she’s wrong.

Ed’s quarters are two decks up from hers. She hits the notification plate, trying to ignore the way her stomach’s tying into knots. 

Ed answers the door. “Alara?”

She can see his uniform tunic draped across his couch. In his undershirt, he looks younger. Softer.

“I have an answer for you,” she says.

“An answer to what?”

“On Daltis. You asked me what I’d do if I thought the world was going to end.”

Ed’s face shifts rapidly, from curiosity to something she can’t read.

“You should come in,” Ed says.

Alara steps forward, and there’s a moment where they almost collide before Ed steps aside.

The door shuts behind them, and Alara can’t wait any longer. She moves closer, pulling Ed down and kissing him. He starts kissing her back. His hand brushes against her cheek, cupping it, like she’s something precious. 

“That’s my answer,” Alara says, when they finally pull apart.

“It’s a good one.” 

She holds herself back, suddenly nervous. “The fact that I’m here,” she says. “I — I want something more than one night. I feel like I should tell you that.”

“That’s what I want too,” Ed says. “Alara, I — I wouldn’t start something like this if I didn’t want it to be a thing. If you want it to be a thing.”

“I want you,” she says, and it’s true. She wants every part of him. His stupid jokes and his weird obsession with ancient Earth culture and the way he looks out at the stars, like they’re something just waiting for him to discover.

The way he looks at her, when she opens one of his pickle jars. The way he tells her she’s stronger than she thinks. Smarter than she knows.

Ed starts kissing her again, tiny kisses that leave her wanting more. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” he says.

She holds him, deepening the kiss. Both of them are breathless before they break apart. 

“Why didn’t you?” she asks.

“You’re on my crew.” Ed leans in, kissing along the base of Alara’s jaw. “Couldn’t risk —” He groans as Alara starts touching the skin beneath his shirt. “Couldn’t risk being wrong.”

Alara pushes him back into his sleeping quarters, down onto his bed. Instead of asking her not to, Ed melts under her hands.

She pulls back for a moment. “Is this okay?”

“God, yes.” Ed’s voice, cut through with need. “Don’t stop.”

“You like this,” she says, suddenly realizing.

“Yeah.” Ed’s beneath her on the bed, staring up at her. “God, Alara, you have no idea how hot that is.”

She pushes him back and leans in, her teeth nipping at his ear before she speaks. “You said I didn’t need to be super-strong.”

“I said you didn’t need to be super-strong to do your job,” Ed says. “Or for me. You don’t need to be super-strong for me.” He blushes. “Look, it’s — it’s a thing, okay? It’s something I’m into.”

Alara smiles down at him. “Good,” she says. “Because I have no intention of stopping.”

He groans again, needier this time, and Alara stops thinking and just responds, kissing Ed deeper. Pushing him into the mattress. She hadn’t hoped for this, hadn’t known she could, but now that she knows —

Sometimes the world does end. And sometimes what comes after is better.


End file.
